It is common practice to perform complex welding operations in the field instead of in a factory; therefore, a large segment of the electric arc welding business has been directed to freestanding, movable welders. In practice, such welders are commonly a power source having a rectified input driven by an AC signal from an alternator rotated by an internal combustion engine.
It is well known to provide doors or openable panels on housings of electric arc engine welders for providing access therein. Access within the housing of an electric arc engine welder allows components contained within the housing to be serviced or replaced when desired. Often, the doors or panels of engine welder housings are adapted to be removable from their respective housings for purposes of allowing the doors or panels to be totally removed as obstructions when desirable to work on one or more of the components contained within the engine welder housing.
One improvement in the cabinet structure of an engine welder has been to provide a pivoted door on the front panels. The various gages and input devices are mounted onto this pivoted door. The maintenance of the door mounted components or devices can be done by pivoting the door. This allows access from either the back side or the front side. Thus, door mounted components are easily repaired by opening the door. This is an advantage of units sold by The Lincoln Electric Company of Cleveland, Ohio; however, this pivoted front panel door does not sufficiently address the problem of accessibility for the many operating components of the engine welder.
One problem with removable doors or panels on engine welder housings is that they may inadvertently separate from the engine welder housing at times when such separation is not desirable. Thus, there is a need for a door assembly that allows a door to be easily slidable and positioned in a stored position while eliminating or reducing inadvertent separation of the door from the engine welder housing.
Engine driven welding machine cabinets are often used for overseas shipment. For efficient shipment in standard shipping containers, it is important that the welding machines be of a particular width, such as no wider than 30 inches. To obtain as much welding capacity as possible within the width limit, the welding machine bases are typically close to 30 inches wide. An example of a welding machine base that has minimum space requirements for both shipping and installation may be seen in U.S. Pat. No. 5,620,620.
Engine driven welding machines require care both when transporting them and when installing them. It is therefore often desirable that the welding machine base also include brackets. It is also desirable that these brackets be used to install the welding machine to a mounting or support surface. For example, the welding machine may be mounted by fasteners to the bed of a large truck or trailer. However, having brackets on the base that are accessible for handling and installing the welding machine presents the problem that the overall base width exceeds the maximum allowable shipping width.
Thus, it is desirable to provide mounting brackets that overcome the width requirement problems and others while providing more advantageous overall results.